Rosh Hashanah and the Second Coming

As many of you already know, we are entering into the fall High Holy Days, comprised of the Feasts of Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles. Just as the spring Feastdays celebrate the First Coming of Messiah Yeshua, and Shavuot (Pentecost) celebrates the giving of the Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) to the Ekklesia in between the visitations of Yeshua, the Fall Feastdays look forward to His Second Coming—and in particular, the Feast of Trumpets looks forward to His Glorious Appearance in the clouds of heaven!

The day which this year falls on September 23 (beginning at sundown the previous night) is known by many names, but is little understood. The most commonly used today is Rosh Hashanah, the Head of the Year or New Year, and is regarded as the start of the Jewish civil calendar. (The religious calendar begins on the first of Nisan, fourteen days before Passover, in accordance with Exo. 12:2.) For this reasons, Jews will greet each other with the phrase, “L’shana tova u-metukah,” “May you have a good and sweet new year” or simply “Shanah tova,” “A good year.” In anticipation of this sweet new year, it is customary to eat a sweet fruit, like an apple or carrot dipped in honey.

The Talmud records the belief that “In the month of Tishri, the world was created” (Rosh Hashanah 10b), and its probably due to this belief that it became known as the Jewish New Year. The belief that the world was created on Rosh Hashanah came out of an anagram: The letters of the first word in the Bible, “In the beginning . . .” (B’resheit) can be rearranged to say, “1 Tishri” (Aleph b’Tishri). Perhaps because so little is directly said in Scripture about this day—unlike all of the other Feastdays, there is no historical precedent given to explain why Rosh Hashanah should be celebrated—the rabbis also speculated that Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Samuel were all born on this day.

However, that’s not it’s Biblical name, which is Yom Teruah, the Day of the [Trumpet] Blast:

The shofar first appears in Scripture as heralding the visible appearance of God coming down on Mt. Sinai to meet with His people (Ex. 19:16-19). It is also linked with His Coming in Zec. 9:14 and with Him going up (making aliyah) to Jerusalem in Psa. 47:5. Small wonder then that Yeshua said He would Come again with the sound of a trumpet, a shofar, in Mat. 24:31, which is echoed by Sha’ul (Paul) in 1 Th. 4:16 and 1 Co. 15:52. Indeed, many commentators have recognized that by “the last trump,” Sha’ul was referring to the final shofar blast, called the Tekia HaGadol, of the Feast of Trumpets.

This visitation by YHVH is closely associated with the second of this Feastdays names: Yom Zikkroun, the Day of Remembrance. This is not primarily meant to be a day when the people remember God, but when God remembers His people—not that He has forgotten them, but in which He fulfills His promises to them by Coming to them. In Isa. 27:13, it is the instrument used to call God’s people Israel back to the Land. In Psalm 27, which is traditionally read in the month leading up to Yom Teruah, we see the Psalmist looking forward to God rescuing him from his enemies:

The shofar is an instrument that is very much associated with war (Jdg. 3:27, 2 Sa. 20:1, Neh. 4:18-22, Ezk. 33:3-6). It was used to destroy the walls of Jericho (Jdg. 6:20). In Joel 2:1, it sounds the start of the Day of the Lord, the time in which God will make war on His enemies: “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the Day of YHVH cometh, for it is nigh at hand” (cf. v. 15). This again matches perfectly with the NT, where Sha’ul describes the Lord’s coming with a trumpet immediately preceding the Day of the Lord (1 Th. 4:16, 5:2).

This brings us to the next name for this Feastday, Yom HaDin, Judgment Day. Not only did the shofar sound the call for war, but also the coronation of kings (2 Sa. 15:10; 1 Ki. 1:34, 29; 2 Ki. 9:13, 11:12-14). Therefore, the rabbis have always associated this day with God’s sovereign Kingship over all mankind: “On Rosh Hashanah all human beings pass before Him as troops, as it is said, ‘The LORD looketh from heaven; He beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of His habitation He looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashioneth their hearts alike; He considereth all their works’” (Rosh Hashanah 6b, quoting Psa. 53:13-15). To remember God’s Kingship, it is traditional to eat round objects to remind us of God’s crown (oriental crowns being shaped as skullcaps instead of circlets). For example, challah is made to be round instead of braided as it normally is.

Because this day is associated with God’s judgment, it is also considered a time of repentance (t’shuva) in preparation for Yom Kippur. The Casting (Tashlikh) Ceremony, in which observant Jews gather together at the shores of oceans, lakes, and rivers and cast in stones and/or crumbs of bread to symbolize “casting off” their sins, is performed on this day to a prayer comprised of Mic. 7:18-20, Psa. 118:5-9, Psa. 33 and 130, and often finishing with Isa. 11:9.

The Bible, of course, is clear that one is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life (cf. Php. 4:3; Rev. 3:5, 13:8, 17:8, and 21:27) not by one’s own righteousness, but by receiving the Messiah’s righteousness by faith, trusting in Him, and that there is no in-between; one either trusts God or one doesn’t. Nevertheless, a great eschatological truth is preserved for us in this rabbinical tradition. At the time of Yeshua’s Second Coming, all mankind will be divided into three groups. Those who have already trusted in the Messiah will be Resurrected and Raptured to be with Him immediately upon His Coming on the clouds of the sky. Those who have taken the mark of the Beast and have chosen to remain with the Wicked One will be slated to die in the Day of the Lord, which for reasons that are beyond the scope of this essay to address, I believe will last for about a year.

However, there will also be a third group, who neither had believed in the Messiah until they saw Him Coming on the clouds but who also had not taken the mark of the Beast. Many of these will be Jews, who will mourn at His coming and so have a fount of forgiveness opened to them (Rev. 1:7, Zec. 12:10-13:2)—most prominently, the 144,000 of Rev. 7 and 14. Others will be Gentiles who will be shown mercy because they showed mercy to the children of God (Mat. 25:31ff). These are given the opportunity to repent during the period between the fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonment, called the Days of Awe—a reference, I believe, to the Day of the Lord.

Finally, this day is known as Yom HaKeseh, the Hidden Day. It was a day that could not be calculated, only looked for. Ancient Israel kept its calendar simply by observing the phases of the moon. If a day were overcast, it might cause a delay in the observance of the beginning of the month, the new moon (Rosh Chodesh), the first tiny crescent of light. Every other Feast was at least a few days after the beginning of the month so that it could be calculated and prepared for in advance. For example, after the new moon that marked the beginning of the month of Nisan, the observant Jew knew that he had fourteen days to prepare for the Passover.

Not so Yom HaKeseh. In the absence of reliable astronomical charts and calculations (which were made only centuries after God commanded the Feasts to be observed), the Feast of Trumpets could be anticipated, estimated to be arriving soon, but until two or more witnesses reported the first breaking of the moon’s light after the darkest time of the month, no one knew “the day or hour.” Therefore, it was a tradition not to sleep on Rosh Hashanah, but to remain awake and alert, a tradition alluded to by Sha’ul: “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober” (1 Th. 5:4-6).

Because of the difficulty of alerting the Jews in the Diaspora when the Sanhedron had decreed the start of the Feast to be, it became traditional to celebrate the first and second day of Tishri together as Yoma Arikhta, “One Long Day.” Is this meant to remind us, perhaps, of when another Y’hoshua (Yeshua) won against his enemies because God cast down great hailstones (like the hailstones of Rev. 16:21) and called upon the Sun to stand still so that they would not escape (Jos. 10:10ff)?

Yom Teruah is a day which ultimately calls all of God’s people together in repentance in anticipation of the glorious Second Coming, in which He will once again visit His people in the Person of the Messiah Yeshua to Resurrect the dead, awaken the living, and judge all mankind together.

What scripture commands you to go to church that day? Do you think Paul kept the 4th Commandment?

The answer to both your questions can be found here (or in the rest of the article):

III. We shall now attempt to show the ground on which the Sabbath "from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord's day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath." This proof is chiefly historical, and divides itself into two branches, the inspired and the uninspired. The first proceeds upon two plain principles. One is, that example may be as valid and instructive a guide to duty as precept. Or, to state it in another form, the precedent set by Christ and his apostles may be as binding as their command. The other is, that whatever necessarily follows from Scripture "by good and necessary consequence" is as really authorized by it as "what is expressly set down."
Our first argument shows that every probability is in favor of the Sunday's being now God's day, in advance of particular testimony. We prove under the first main head that a Sabbath institution is universal and perpetual -- that the command to keep it holy belongs to that law from which one jot or one tittle cannot pass till heaven and earth pass. But the apostle Paul (in Col. 2:16, 17) clearly tells us that the seventh day is no longer the Sabbath. It has been changed. To what other day has it been changed? The law is not totally repealed; it cannot be. What day has taken the place of the seventh? None is so likely to be the substitute as the Lord's day; this must be the day.
The main direct argument is found in the fact that Christ and his apostles did, from the very day of the resurrection, hallow the first day of the week as a religious day. To see the full force of this fact we must view it in the light of the first argument. We remember that the disciples, like all men of all ages, are bound by the Decalogue to keep holy God's Sabbath. We see them remit the observance of the seventh day as no longer binding, and we see them observing the first. Must we not conclude that these inspired men regarded the authority of God as now attaching to this Lord's day?
We shall find, then, that the disciples commenced the observance of the first day on the very day of Christ's resurrection, and thenceforward continued it. John 20:19 tells us that the "same day, being the first day of the week," the disciples were assembled at evening with closed doors, and Christ came and stood in the midst. Can we doubt that they met for worship? In the twenty-sixth verse we learn, "And after eight days again the disciples were within, and Thomas with them" (who had been absent before). "Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you." None will doubt that this was also a meeting for worship, and the language implies that it was their second meeting. Now, it is admitted by all that the Jews, in counting time, always included in their count the days with which the period began and ended. The best known instances of this rule is seen in the rising of Christ. He was to be "three days in the heart of the earth," but the three days were made out only by counting the day of his death and the day of his rising, although the latter event happened early in the morning of that day. By this mode of counting, the eighth day, or full week from the disciples' first meeting, brings us again to the first day of the week. Thus we learn that twice at least between the resurrection and Pentecost the first day was kept as the Lord's day.
But the decisive instance is that of Pentecost itself. The reader will see, by consulting Lev. 23:15, 16, or Dent. 15:9, that this day was fixed in the following manner: On the morrow after that Sabbath -- seventh day -- which was included within the passover week, a sheaf of the earliest ripe corn was cut, brought fresh into the sanctuary, and presented as a thank-offering unto God. Thus the day of this ceremony must always be the first day of the week, corresponding to our Lord's day. From this day they were to count seven weeks complete, and the fiftieth clay was to be Pentecost day, or the beginning of their "feast of ingathering." Remembering, now, that the Israelites always included in their reckoning the day from which and the day to which they counted, we see that the fiftieth day brings us again to the first day of the week. We are told expressly that Christ rose on the first clay of the week.
We thus learn the important fact that the day selected by God for setting up the gospel dispensation and for the great pentecostal outpouring was the Lord's day -- a significant and splendid testimony to the sacred honor it was intended to have in the Christian ages.
This epoch was indeed the creation of a new world in the spiritual sense. The work was equal in glory and everlasting moment to that first creation which caused "the morning stars to sing together and all the sons of God to shout for joy." Well might God substitute the first day for the seventh when the first day had now become the sign of two separate events, the rising of Christ and the founding of the new dispensation, either of which is as momentous and blessed to us as the world's foundation.
But we read in Acts 1:14, and 2:1, that this seventh Lord's day was also employed by the apostles and disciples as a day for religious worship; and it was while they were thus engaged that they received the divine sanction in their blessed baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost. Then the first public proclamation of the gospel under the new dispensation began, and the model was set up for the consecration of the new Christian Sabbath -- not by the burning of additional lambs -- by public preaching, the two sacraments of baptism and the supper, and the oblation of their worldly substance to God. At this all-important stage every step, every act, of the divine providence recorded by inspiration in the Acts was formative and fundamental. Hence we must believe that this event was meant by God as a forcible precedent, establishing the Lord's day as our Christian Sabbath.
Let the reader carefully weigh this question: Have we any other kind of warrant for the framework of the church? All Christians, for instance, believe that the deacon's office in the church is of perpetual divine appointment. Even Rome has it, though perverted. What is the basis of that belief? The precedent set in the sixth chapter of Acts. The apostles there say, It is not good "for us to leave the word of God and serve tables," etc. They do not say even as much about the universal perpetuity of this office as Paul says to Titus (ch. 1:15) about the elder's office: "Ordain elders in every city." But all sensible men see that the principle stated and the example set are enough, and that the Holy Spirit obviously taught the inspired historians to relate this formative act of the new dispensation as a model for all churches. The warrant for making the Lord's day the Sabbath is of the same kind.
It is most evident, from the New Testament history, that the apostles and the churches they planted uniformly hallowed the Lord's day. The instances are not numerous, but they are distinct.
The next clear instance is in Acts 20:7. The apostle Paul was now returning from his famous mission to Macedonia and Achaia in full prospect of captivity at Jerusalem. He stops at the favorite little church of Troas, on the Asiatic coast, a little south of the Hellespont, to spend a week with his converts there. "And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight." Here we have a double evidence of our point. First, Paul preached to the disciples on this day, while he had been, as the sixth verse shows, a whole week at Troas, including the Jewish Sabbath. Why did he wait a whole week? Why did not the meeting, with the sermon and sacrament, take place on the Jewish Sabbath? We learn from verse sixteen that Paul had very little time to spare, because he had to make the whole journey from Philippi to Jerusalem, with all his wayside visits, within the six weeks between the end of the paschal and beginning of the pentecostal feast. He was obviously waiting for the church's sacred day in order to join them in their public worship, just as a missionary would wait now under similar circumstances. But, second. The words, "When the disciples came together to break bread," show that the first day of the week was the one on which they met to celebrate the Lord's supper. So it appears that this church at Troas, planted and trained by Paul, kept the first day of the week for public worship and the sacrament, and the inspired man puts himself to some inconvenience to comply with their usage. It has indeed been objected that he selected this day, not because it was the Lord's day, but because he could not wait any longer. This is exploded by the fact that he had already waited six days, including the Jewish Sabbath; he was evidently waiting for this day because it was the Lord's day.
The next clear instance is in 1Cor. 16:1, 2: "Now, concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come." We here learn two things: that the weekly oblation of almsgiving was fixed for the Lord's day, and that this rule was enacted not only for the church at Corinth, but for all the churches of Galatia. It seems a very clear inference that the apostle afterward made the rule uniform in other churches as he organized them. Again, we find the objectors arguing that, admitting what we claim, we have not proved that there was any regular public worship on the Lord's day, because it is said, "Lay by you in store;" that is, at home. But the answers are two: The words, "Lay by him," etc., are, literally, "place to himself," or "segregate" -- "treasuring according as the Lord hath prospered him." It is a misunderstanding of the apostle's meaning to take the word "treasuring" as putting a piece of money on Sunday morning in a separate box or purse at home. Most frequently, as we know from history, it was not money, but bread, meat, fruit, clothing, a part of anything with which providence had blessed them; and the undoubted usage in the earliest age after the apostles was to carry this oblation with them to church every Lord's day morning and give it to the deacons, who put it into a common stock for charitable uses. The words "treasuring it" refer, says Calvin, to a wholly different idea -- to that which our Saviour expresses (Matt. 6:20): "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven;" to that idea which the charitable Christian expressed on his tombstone: "What I kept, I lost; what I gave away, I have." It is the Lord's treasury which the apostle here has in view -- the Lord's "store." So that the natural meaning of the precept is fairly presented in this paraphrase: "Let every one every Sunday morning set apart according as the Lord hath prospered him, what he intends to carry to church with him to put into the Lord's store." But, second. Even if we contradict the unanimous voice of history, testifying that the weekly oblation took place at the church-meeting and went at once into the deacon's hands, the truth remains that this oblation was an act of worship. (See Phil. 4:18; 2Cor. 9:12, 13.) This weekly oblation was, then, a weekly act of worship, and it was appointed by inspired authority to be done on the Lord's day. That makes this day a sacred day of worship; we care not whether this oblation was public or private, so far as the argument is concerned.3
The other instance of apostolic consecration of the first day is perhaps the most instructive of all. In Rev. 1:10, John, when about to describe how he came to have this revelation, says, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." The venerable apostle was "in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus." We know from history exactly what this means. The pagan magistrates had banished him to this rocky, desolate islet in the Ægean Sea as a punishment for preaching the gospel and testifying that Jesus is our risen Saviour. He was there alone, separated from all his brethren. But he "was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." What does this mean? It means that he was doing what godly people now call "keeping Sunday." He was engaging in spiritual exercises. He was holding communion with the Holy Spirit. Here, then, is our first point: that although in solitude, cut off alike from Christian meetings and ordinary week-day occupations, by his banishment, the inspired apostle was "keeping Sunday." It is the strongest possible example. Our second point is, that God blessed him in his Sabbath-keeping with the greatest spiritual blessing which perhaps he had enjoyed since he sat at the feet of Jesus. His Saviour came down from glory to "keep Sunday" with him. Our third and. strongest point is, that the inspired man here calls the day "the Lord's day." There is no doubt but that the "Lord" named is the glorified Redeemer, whom he declares in his epistle to be "the true God and eternal life." There is but one consistent and scriptural sense to place on this name of the day. It is the day that belongs especially to the Lord. But as all our days belong in one sense to him, the only meaning is that the first day of the week is now set apart and hallowed to Christ. In Isa. 58:13 the Sabbath is called by God "my holy day;" in 56:4, "my Sabbath." That was God's day; it belonged to God. This is Christ's day, and in the same sense belongs to Christ. It is consecrated to his worship as was the Sabbath; it is virtually "the Christian Sabbath."
R. L. Dabney, The Christian Sabbath

Thanks for the follow-up ping.

My quarrel is when people start talking about these Jewish holy days being normative for Christians. That is simply unacceptable. Consider:

"Therefore do not let anyone judge you with respect to food or drink, or in the matter of a feast, new moon, or Sabbath days – these are only the shadow of the things to come, but the reality is Christ!" - Col. 2:16-17 [NET]

That cuts both ways, actually: Note that it is not I who judge TC for not observing "a feast," but he who judges me for having the temerity to do what God has commanded and never countermanded. It is therefore TC who is (again) in violation of God's command, not I.

But as for the "norms," having Feastdays to give special recognition to certain events in the history of God's redemptive plan is and always has been part of the normative Christian (and Jewish) life. There is a reason why every culture has its own holidays (holy days)--it's hardwired into us. God Himself recognized this need for "days off" in which events of the past or future are commemorated and refreshed in our minds, which is why He gave Israel seven particularly holy days to begin with.

TC is just coming across as an arrogant legalist of a very peculiar stripe: He (to judge by his posts) looks down on everyone who does not practice or understand Christianity according to his personal preferences. One could easily believe that having built for himself so barren and dead a religion, he is simply envious of those of us who enjoy ourselves and take pleasure in keeping God's commands, even the wierd ones.

TC has not only violated the command against judging another on the basis of "a feast, a sabbath, or a new moon," he has also repeatedly slandered me and several other posters with the label "Judaizers." Have any of us said that you are not saved or not a Christian if you don't keep the Feastdays? Have any of us said you are a second-class citizen in God's Kingdom if you don't do things the way we do? Have we ever said you have to be circumcised to be saved? No? Then the label does not apply, and TC is either being ignorant or deceptive by continuing to use it.

All I have done is said, "Look, God gave these Feasts for a reason. Here's why. I've personally found them to be a great blessing, and I think every Christian should take the time to celebrate them at least once in their lives." How is that legalistic or Judaizing? I've never broken fellowship with xzins, P-Marlowe, blue-duncan, Corin, you or anyone else on the basis of the Torah's ceremonial commands.

Despite the psychological projection of some here, I've never made keeping the Feasts or any other ceremonial Torah command the basis on which I judge a person's spiritual maturity either; you'll notice that I hold Jude, HarleyD, the Neeners, and others in very high regard though none of you are Messianic. Why? Because I can see in your posts a passionate heart for the Lord and a genuine light of Christ, and the fact that we have honest disagreements about the application of certain passages of Scripture in no way takes away from the fact that we are brothers, of one Body.

It is TC, I want everyone to notice, who breaks fellowship on the basis of honest disagreement. He repeatedly refers to Messianic beliefs as "Judaizing"--which, since Sha'ul called anathema down on the Judaizers, means that he does not regard me or other Messianics as Christian brothers. He calls those who take joy in Christmas and Easter "Romanists," which in his vocabulary is hardly better. He condemns everyone else's traditions, while constantly fleeing to his own traditions in lieu of a Biblical argument.

I'm not the one judging anyone here. Do I think that the Church screwed up by abandoning the Torah? Yes. So what? Protestants think that the Church screwed up by substituting Grace with a new law of works. TC doesn't seem to have a problem acknowledging that the Church got it wrong for fourteen centuries; why should it be a problem that I think that some errors continued without correction even after that? And where I believe I see an error, am I not bound by Christian love and honesty to point it out?

In return, I submit my own views and practices for correction--provided that such correction is on the basis of the Word of God, and not on the basis of, "Well, we've always done it this way. How dare you say we're wrong!" To quote Tertullian, "Tradition without truth is error grown old." If TC wants to make an actual Scriptural argument against the position made in the article, I welcome it. However, simply labelling everything he doesn't agree with as one heresy or another doesn't cut it, nor does making vague assertions that, "Well, the book of Hebrews proves me right" without any exegesis of the book of Hebrews. Nor indeed does simply labelling my beliefs as too rabbinic or Jewish; our Lord, in case he hadn't noticed, was a Jewish Rabbi.

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